Switchable magnetic fields with various geometries and magnitudes are required for laser cooling and atom optic devices. Examples include quadrupole magnetic fields for two dimensional magneto-optic traps (2D MOTs), spherical quadrupole magnetic fields for three-dimensional magneto-optic traps (3D MOTs), and spatially uniform, large volume bias magnetic fields for atom interferometers. The magnetic fields for laser cooling and atom optic devices are typically generated with conventional electromagnets that use current carrying wires wound onto coil forms. For conventional electromagnets, the field shape and magnitude are set by the drive current and the geometry and number of windings in the electromagnets. To satisfy size constraints and minimize power consumption, the coils are often placed inside vacuum chambers. This approach generates the requisite fields, but leads to several problems including waste heat generated by the coils and the resulting need for efficient heat sinking to avoid thermal runaway, outgassing from the wire insulation and associated hardware for connecting the wires to external current sources, and the challenge of diagnosing problems with in-vacuum components that cannot be accessed without opening the vacuum enclosure. The latter, in particular, can lead to costly or tedious repair cycles involving iterative repair and evacuation cycles. The design space to achieve a given magnetic field geometry with conventional electromagnets is also relatively limited; for example, bias fields with minimized gradients require coils pairs whose spacing is set by their length and width; maximizing the gradient versus drive current for a spherical quadrupole field also requires coil pairs whose spacing is set by their common radii. These limitations can lead, for space-confined in-vacuum volumes, to a limited number of windings and hence excessively large drive currents that, in turn, generate higher waste heat in the coils and thus more challenging in-vacuum thermal and outgassing problems.